Work Text:
Mea Culpa
by Susannah Shepherd
Tuesday, December 9th, 1890
It is a mystery to me why I should feel compelled to record this sordid tale in writing, when I know that I may never show it to another soul—save perhaps one—without risking my good name and honour, my self-respect, and even my liberty; my indiscretion also exposes another to those risks. And, not least of all, I risk my marriage and my domestic happiness. If my beloved Mary were ever to find how she has been cruelly wronged and betrayed by the husband who made such binding vows less than two years ago... But write it I must, if only because I am now accustomed to so recording the great dramas of my life, and it is perhaps fitting that my true motives should remain unknown, given that the seemingly inexplicable has so dominated the years I have spent with Holmes.
Ah, Holmes, my dear, dear Holmes. We had drifted apart since my marriage; an inevitable course, I suppose, given that we no longer dwelt beneath the same roof in Baker Street and I had new demands upon my time, but I could not help feeling that there was some deeper reason for the gulf between us. He still called for me occasionally when my skills or presence were required in the further service of one of his clients, but those occasions were infrequent and we no longer shared the easy Bohemian companionship of old. Now I believe I know what that deeper reason was—is—and I cannot help but chide myself for the pain which I so unwittingly caused to my dearest and most beloved friend.
As I read back over these words, I see that my guilty thoughts grow disjointed. I should, perhaps, do what I find easiest and simply tell the story as though it were one of those little sketches which I have been writing of late.
I have already written an expurgated version of the case of Mr Culverton Smith, that evil and devious man, who sought to murder Holmes by the same fiendish means—infection with a ghastly tropical disease transmitted by a cunning device—as he had murdered his poor young nephew. The particulars of the case as I have laid them down in my narrative are true, but certain matters concerning only Holmes and myself have been omitted or altered. One may lay the account before the public with no qualms or fears of discovery, but I do not know when I shall feel able to do so, so great is the turmoil which roils within me even on simply re-reading the heavily edited conclusion to my tale.
My other account, which I have entitled "The Adventure of the Dying Detective", describes how Holmes counterfeited the symptoms of a fatal illness to entice Smith into a confession of murder, which I witnessed and corroborated from my position of concealment behind Holmes’s bed. I have oft touched upon Holmes’s skill as an actor and as a master of disguise, and on this occasion he surpassed even his own superlative standards.
Both Mrs Hudson and I were completely convinced that Holmes was dying, and the prospect caused me far more pain than I should have believed possible. His behaviour towards me, in what I believed to be his final hours, twisted the knife even deeper into my heart. He would not let me near him, when all I wanted to do was to give him the best medical care of which I was capable, and, if that was not enough, to ease his suffering through to the bitter end. But he would not let me even touch him, and the two hours I spent locked in his bedroom, watching him toss in feverish unrest but unable to give him even the simple relief of a cool moist cloth soothingly applied to the temples, tested me sorely.
If I am honest with myself, which I must surely be, or this terrible narrative shall have no purpose at all, his comments regarding my medical abilities also hurt me greatly. I tried to pass them off as the ravings of a semi-delirious man, but I have always been all too aware that the burning flame of Holmes’s intellect casts my own modest accomplishments and abilities deep into the shade. He was right, I am simply an undistinguished and inexperienced general practitioner, and the knowledge that he himself understood more than I of the dread illness only reinforced my inadequacies in my mind.
Such self-pity, however, must detract from the tale I am supposed to be telling. I made my dramatic appearance from behind the bedstead, Inspector Morton took the handcuffed Culverton Smith into his close custody, and as the police prepared to leave Holmes promised to follow Morton to the police station once he had dressed.
‘I think not!’ I interjected. ‘You shall not be fit to go anywhere this evening, Holmes!’
‘I’m inclined to agree, Mr Holmes,’ Morton added. ‘You look done in!’
‘Oh,’ he said, wiping some of the rouge from his cheeks with the heel of his hand, ‘it’s mostly for dramatic effect.’
‘The details can wait until the morning,’ the police detective said breezily, ‘we shall lay our charges, and our bird shan’t be flying anywhere tonight!’ He wished us a cheery good night and took his prisoner down to the waiting cab.
‘Come now, my dear doctor, I shall be fine,’ Holmes said to me from his bed as Morton left. ‘As you know, my habits are irregular, and such a feat of abstention means less to me than to most men.’
‘Even you have your limits!’ I riposted. ‘I have rung for Mrs Hudson, and she is bringing up something nourishing to eat and drink.’
‘That will be welcome, I must admit, now that my cravings for tobacco have been satisfied. I shall partake as I dress and attend to my toilet.’ He pushed back the covers and prepared to get out of bed.
‘No!’ I cried, my voice sounding harsher and more masterful than I had intended. ‘You shall not leave this room, Holmes—in fact you shall not leave this bed!—until I am satisfied as to your condition. I may be a very routine and mediocre doctor, but I think even you will grant that I am at least capable of managing a case of dehydration and malnourishment.’
He had looked at me with cold resentment as I ordered him to remain in his bed, but as he heard the bitter words which followed his eyes softened, and his voice was gentle as he answered me.
‘Watson...’ he chided. ‘Do you really imagine that I have no respect for your medical talents? Could I fancy that your astute judgment would pass a dying man who, however weak, had no rise of pulse or temperature? At four yards, I could deceive you. Had you touched me, you should have seen straight through me. If you had not believed me, who would bring Smith within my grasp?’
Holmes’s words mollified me a little, but, despite his explanation, I cannot help but feel that his stratagem was so effective because it rested on an unpalatable truth. Nevertheless, he appeared to be genuine in his contrition, and his apology for his harm to my feelings softened my anger towards him. I relented further as Mrs Hudson brought in her tray, and I saw how he endured her heartfelt expressions of relief with more patience than was usual with him when confronted with the emotional excesses of the fair sex. He seemed to realise what a terrible fright he had given us both, and the thanks he gave to our landlady as she left the room were sincere indeed.
I approached his bed, where he sat propped up on a pile of pillows, sat down on the edge of it, and reached for the watered-down pitcher of lemonade which Mrs Hudson fortuitously had to hand in her capacious larder. I poured a glassful for Holmes, who looked at me with patient forbearance when I held the glass to his lips as though he were a complete invalid, and urged him to drink in slow small sips. I handed him some biscuits, which he ate with relish, then got him to wash them down with more lemonade.
‘You take too many risks with yourself, Holmes, really you do. To go without even a glass of water for three whole days, it is madness!’
‘It was necessary for the illusion, Watson. Like you, Smith would not have been easily fooled.’
‘Illusion!’ I ejaculated with some heat. ‘There is little illusion here now. You are genuinely unwell, whether you choose to admit it or not.’ Holmes made an impatient huffing noise and made to rise, but I put my hand to his shoulder and pushed him back down to the bed. ‘Those hollow eyes of yours are no counterfeit, nor is this skin.’ I pinched a fold of skin on the inside of one of his sinewy wrists, and demonstrated to him its lack of elasticity, a sure sign of serious dehydration.
‘Watson, you fuss too much,’ he said dismissively. ‘This is nothing that one of Mrs Hudson’s fine meals and a half-bottle of claret will not remedy.’
His casual words were the last straw. ‘I fuss too much?’ I hissed at him. ‘How dare you, Holmes? How dare you! I thought you were dying, man, dying!’
His eyes flew wide open with surprise, but I had lost control of myself and all my fear, anger and heartache poured out of me in a tumble of furious words.
‘How dare you! How could you? How could you let me think that? How could you? I thought I was going to lose you, and I could do nothing! You would let me do nothing!’
I only became aware that I was pounding at Holmes’s upper arm with my clenched fist when his long, strong fingers locked around my wrist and held me gently but firmly in his grasp. His other hand reached for my free hand, which clasped tightly at a handful of blanket, and he pulled both of them back into my lap. Once he had done so, he did not loose me, but his thumbs played soothingly across my tense knuckles.
I could have sworn that his eyes were glittering with a hint of moisture rather than the effects of the belladonna as he looked into my distraught face, and spoke in a voice still scratchy with dryness.
‘Oh, Watson, my dear Watson, can you ever forgive me? If I had known how much distress my little subterfuge would cause you, I should not have involved you in this case at all.’ He licked his trembling, cracked lips, and spoke again in a softer voice. ‘I did not presume to expect that you would be so sorely affected...’
While he had been speaking, his hands had slipped up my arms to hold me gently by the shoulders, and, as my own lower lip began to tremble uncontrollably, he drew me closer. To my shame, I felt childish tears start into my eyes, and within seconds great sobs of relief were wracking my body and reducing me to imbecilic speechlessness. I tried to pull away to compose myself, but Holmes would not have it, and he pulled me into a tight embrace.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he whispered over and over into my ear as he held me in his arms and rubbed my back, and I yielded to that comforting touch. Then, heaven help me, I surrendered further as I felt his dry, swollen lips brush my forehead in a tender kiss, and I did not resist as the kiss moved down to my cheek, even though the scratchy growth on his chin rasped unfamiliarly against my skin. Rather, I pillowed my head more comfortably against his shoulder and let his tender ministrations continue. Years of dealing with anxious and fretful clients, as well as his natural composure, have given him the ability to convey a sense of great calm, and he quickly soothed me back to quietness.
When my embarrassing sobbing fit had ceased, Holmes relaxed his hold on me and I was able to pull free from his arms, although I must admit that I did so with some reluctance. What man could resist such an honest and heartfelt expression of regard and apology from a cherished friend, especially one such as Holmes, who but rarely shows his gentler feelings even to me? I wiped my eyes dry on my shirt-cuffs, then looked up into Holmes’s face with some trepidation, fearing what I might see. What I did see there moved me further—the contrition and the sympathy, the love and the respect.
I did not lie about the spirituality of my dear Mary’s eyes when I published the tale of our courtship, but I did perhaps exaggerate their singularity. I have seen such a quality in the eyes of another, in the steady grey gaze of Holmes, although he did not always choose to show it. I flatter myself that I was allowed to see that soulfulness more often than any other, although it was not until that fateful night that I realised that Holmes’s look reflected more than a general sensitivity of character. The shutters were opened and his eyes bared the deepest secret of his being to me in those moments, and I found that I not only accepted his feelings, I shared them as well.
I was so moved by Holmes’s ardent gaze that I did not resist when he bent to kiss me on the lips and pulled me back into his arms once again. On the contrary, my own lips parted readily and I deepened the kiss, slipping my arms around his spare frame and running one hand into his dark hair to hold him close. He wore only his flannel nightgown, and I could feel every contour of muscle and sinew and bone as I caressed his wiry back and his slim but powerful shoulders.
He groaned into my mouth as my fingers stroked the back of his head, and I dared to taste his lemonade-flavoured tongue with my own. He responded with alacrity, until we were near to consuming each other with a burning intensity the like of which I have never experienced before. Our passionate abandon was so great that I forgot to breathe, and it was only when red starbursts began to appear inside my closed eyelids that I forced myself to break free of him.
The roughness of his unshaven chin and the masculine contours of his body made it clear to me that I was engaging in these acts of love with another man, but I found that I did not and could not care. I had felt in my youth that some of my attachments to other fellows ran further than simple friendship, and potentially beyond the bounds of propriety or prudence. Those desires had never been strong enough to entice me to take any action, and I had since discovered the pleasures to be found in the company of women. But Holmes is different. The fact that he is another man seems almost incidental.
Of course, I thought little of this at the time, and as I sucked some vital air into my lungs my mouth strayed to explore that delicious sensitive spot just below the curve of the jaw. I felt his pulse racing beneath my lips.
‘Watson!’ Holmes ejaculated with delight. ‘Your moustache tickles so delightfully,’ he murmured, and the sensuous quality to his voice sent shivers of anticipation throughout my body. I began to nibble and suck gently at his responsive skin, and he gave a rich, slow laugh which turned my insides almost liquid.
The bedclothes had fallen from Holmes’s body as we kissed and embraced, and as I shifted to make myself more comfortable I saw that his lower body was covered only by a wrinkled sheet. The evidence of his arousal and desire was unmistakeable, as his erect member pushed up the bed linen to form a commodious tent above his lap.
I must admit that the sight sobered me a little; although my own body had responded similarly, the evidence was largely hidden beneath my clothes. It brought it home to me that we were both grown men with mature desires, and that heated kisses were unlikely to satisfy either of us after we had denied our cravings for so long. Such an encounter was not to be entered into lightly, whatever the sincerity of our feelings, given the harshness and intrusiveness of the law, and my status as a married man.
Holmes noticed my distraction and followed my gaze downwards. He then took my chin gently in his fingers and turned my face back to meet his eyes, and I saw in the uncertainty of his expression that he shared my thoughts and concerns. Neither of us spoke our fears aloud, but in his increasingly steady and certain gaze I saw his love and his willingness to risk all.
I rose from the bed, and I fear that Holmes mistook my reaction. I had not taken more than three paces towards the door when I heard his voice behind me, sharp with alarm.
‘Watson!’ he cried as if in pain, and as I turned to face him I saw emotions in his face which I should never have expected to see. Holmes’s expression was full of need and vulnerability, and, most surprising to me, his eyes were tinged with fear. That was the first and only time, I believe, that I have ever seen Holmes afraid, and I was greatly taken aback to see the man I had though imperturbable reduced to such naked dread, especially by me, harmless John Watson.
I smiled at him then, letting him see that I cherished and wanted him as much as he longed for me, and took the last few steps to the door, where I turned the key firmly in the lock. I also turned the gas back down to a lower setting, leaving just enough light to see him by, and tossed my coat and waistcoat on to a chair and loosened my collar while I was on my feet. As I returned to him I saw with relief that his face had cleared of pain, although it was worth inflicting that on him—albeit unwittingly—to know just how much he needed me.
Holmes stretched his arms out to me as I approached him, and I locked my fingers with his gladly, marvelling anew at the beautiful form of those sensitive hands and relishing the thought that he would soon apply his delicacy of touch to my pleasure. I sat as before on the edge of the bed, facing him, and we shared a conspiratorial smile before I withdrew my hands from his and pulled back the linen from his body.
He is exceedingly tall and slender, and so his nightshirt falls shorter than it would on most men. In addition, it had ridden up as he lay in bed, so that his long legs lay bare before me. The low gaslight threw a golden glow across his flawless ivory skin, and I drank in his elegant contours with my eyes and then with my fingertips. He twitched as I circled a finger gently around his bony kneecap, then exhaled with a groan as I traced a leisurely path up the soft warm skin of his inner thigh. He pulled his legs apart a little way, so as not to impede my progress.
When I reached the hem of his nightshirt, I hesitated only for a second before pushing it upwards to reveal that which I longed to see. He wriggled his hips most fetchingly to allow me to tug the nightshirt free of his seat, and then he pulled it off over his head with one smooth, graceful motion.
The sight of Holmes reclining naked before me on the bed, a self-satisfied smile playing across his face, made the breath catch in my throat and left me temporarily speechless. Holmes, with his knowledge, intelligent judiciousness, and natural dignity, often gives the impression of wise agelessness. He is, in fact, still a rather young man, well within his prime, soft-skinned and with an athletic body. His face is too sharp and angular, his forehead too domed, to be considered truly handsome, but taken as a whole, he is utterly beautiful.
His three-day fast had stripped away what little cushioning flesh he carried on his frame, to my annoyance as a physician, but as an admirer I melted at the sight of his compact musculature. Holmes is slim, but not skinny. He would make a perfect model for an anatomical drawing class, so defined is his form.
I saw that my hand shook as I reached out to trace the lines and hollows of his collarbones, then I slipped down to caress his hard, smooth pectoral muscles before I dared to circle one finger around his small, brown nipple. He had watched me with a gentle, tolerant smile as I stroked him experimentally at first, but as that small bud of flesh swelled and hardened under my touch, he gasped and threw back his head on the pillows.
His blissful response emboldened me, and my touch grew surer and wider-ranging. My hands slipped downwards to explore his muscled abdomen and to stroke gently at the soft skin around his navel, and I was even brave enough to drop my head to his breast and tease at his nipples with my lips and tongue. His chest reverberated with moans of pleasure, and his hands slipped into my hair and caressed my shoulders beneath my clothes as I licked and suckled at him. He plucked the collar free from my neck and began to fumble with my shirt-front as my hands roved even further afield.
My fingers had found the light scattering of soft dark hair which grew between his navel and his groin, and as I slipped around to tickle him just above his hipbone, making him (to my great delight) giggle and writhe under my touch, my arm brushed against that most masculine part of him. I realised then that I had been avoiding touching him there. I suppose that is not entirely surprising; as a medical man and a soldier, the male body holds few surprises for me, but I do not think that I have ever before handled another man’s organ in the aroused state.
‘Touch me, Watson,’ he implored in a low and hoarse voice. ‘For the love of God, touch me!’
So I did, venturing to do that which I had been both longing for and fearing. At first I applied only my fingertips to his shaft, and I gasped at the heat and solidity as I held him lightly. He moaned a little, and I wrapped him suddenly and tightly within my palm, which then made him cry out more sharply.
I admit that I was not entirely sure what to do, but it seemed to me that whatever would pleasure me would likely pleasure Holmes, and so I began to stroke him slowly, clenching and unclenching around him. His penis is like the rest of him, long and a touch thin—deceptively so, one realises as one grasps at the solid reality. My movements appeared to be having the desired effect, and I watched with fascination as he undulated under my touch and muttered occasional inarticulate noises of delight.
His hand was inside my shirt-front now, and the combination of his fingers playing over my chest and the sight of his enjoyment raised me to such a peak of excitement that I abandoned all pretence of restraint. I began to work Holmes with some enthusiasm, and he responded by insinuating one hand downwards towards my own straining organ. My position on the bed made it impossible for even his nimble fingers to unfasten my flies, but he was able to fondle me through the thick fabric of my trousers.
It was as Holmes pushed between my thighs to cradle my testicles—which, incidentally, almost made me scream aloud with desire and gratification—that a desperately wicked thought struck me. My own hand traced backwards to caress his soft scrotum, but I did not cease there—while the heavy, pendulous weight rested in the palm of my hand, my fingertips stroked his perineum, which I well know to be an area of the body amply supplied with sensitive nerve endings.
Holmes’s reaction was electric. He jerked his legs up and apart, and wailed ‘Yes, oh, yes!’ as I stimulated him. That was all I needed to hear, to strengthen my resolve to attempt that which my mind had conceived. When I was a young medical student, the most obscene effects that could be obtained by internal digital stimulation of the prostate gland were the subject of great ribaldry and lewdness, and there were always lurid rumours concerning the erotic experiments of some of the bolder students. Never before had I had the desire or opportunity to put that knowledge into effect, but I did now.
I broke my hold from him for a mere second to grab at the jar which I had seen on his nightstand during my enforced stay that afternoon. Of course Holmes would say that, as I had not made the connection between the contents and his apparently sweat-stained brow, I had on that occasion seen but not observed. Now, I prided myself, I was about to do both.
I swiped a generous amount of vaseline on to my fingers, and reapplied myself to Holmes’s pleasure. I touched him diffidently at first, working the lubricant near and around the entrance to his body, but he showed no signs of discomfort or unwillingness—rather the opposite, in fact, as he started to gasp and groan with unfulfilled desire. As I pushed against his hard puckered flesh, and felt my lubricated finger slide through the tight sphincter and into the hot satiny depths beyond, he whispered my name with the most heart-warming tenderness.
The rumours I had heard were substantially correct. The effects of my massaging fingers—his anal muscles soon loosened sufficiently to allow the entry of a second digit—on Holmes’s prostate were quite startling. His head tossed uncontrollably on the pillows and he babbled and moaned in incoherent syllables. My other hand had returned to its position on his member, and as I set up a firm and regular rhythm I was entranced to watch this most cold and detached of men transported to the heights of rapture. I was so involved in the effect I was having on Holmes that I almost forgot my own arousal.
Such stimulation could not be borne for long, and as I moved faster both within and without his climax came suddenly and swiftly. His emissions burst forth in hot thick pulses, spurting over my hand and his belly, while his body clenched around my fingers in fast little waves. I withdrew my hand from inside him but continued to pet him gently until he lay limp and exhausted next to me. Never before have I seen a man look so spent and yet so happy.
After some seconds, he pushed himself upright on the pillows again, and reached for a soft flannel cloth from the bedside with which to clean himself, and then me. His usually steely eyes were almost sentimental as he smiled at me and reached out a hand to caress my burning cheek with slightly shaky fingers.
‘My God, Watson,’ he rasped, and a look of wonder appeared in his eyes. ‘You have the patient self-sacrifice of a saint, and the touch of a most accomplished succubus. Come,’ he added, tugging at my shirt front, ‘I shall not have all the pleasure tonight.’
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, so that he could reach to undress me. I let him do almost everything as he slipped off my braces, removed my shirt, and unfastened and pushed aside my combinations. He then laid a trail of delicious tickling kisses across my torso as he unfastened my flies and dropped my trousers to the floor. I was straining mightily against my underwear by this time, and as Holmes pushed it from my shoulders and down over my hips he laid a wet kiss on the very tip of my manhood, to my great surprise and pleasure. I removed my boots and stockings in record time and allowed him to pull me down to join him under the disarrayed sheets.
His fingers, as they played across every sensitive spot on my body, were as long and strong as ever, but I felt in the confidence of his touch that he had entirely lost that edge of nervousness which had characterised him in the past. His was the touch of a master violinist, playing every note true and with just the right amount of vibrato. His mouth sought mine again, and I revelled in the feel of his strength as he rolled on top of me and pinned me under the weight of his desiring body.
His hands sought out my private parts before long and plied me with such skill and enthusiasm that I feared I should spend myself far too soon—Holmes’s raptures had made me determined to extend the experience for as long as possible, and I half-hoped that he would reciprocate my earlier attentions to him. But he had other intentions, for which I soon became immensely grateful.
As he stroked and pumped me to a crescendo of excitement, his mouth worked its way down my chest and abdomen, stopping to flicker a tongue over a sensitive nipple, or to circle around my navel. He did not stop there, though, and before long I felt his hot breath on my groin. I did not have time to ponder what this might lead to before his tongue began a slow, lazy path up the length of my member, and then Holmes began to lick delicately at the sensitive underside of the glans.
That sensation alone made me nearly leap for the ceiling, but when his tongue circled once again before his mouth sucked me in deep and hard, I really did tense and arch my entire body beneath him. It took me a second or two to realise that the muffled whimpering noises were emerging from my own throat, but then Holmes chuckled around me as he licked and sucked and swallowed, and my whimpers turned into more of an uncontrolled keen as the vibrations resonated right through me.
I lack the words to describe adequately the effects that Holmes’s attentions had on my body and my mind. When his curled fingers joined his mouth and his tongue, I feared that I really might explode with arousal, or lose my mind completely. Certainly my head was spinning with stimulation and pleasure and desire, although cold rationalisation tells me that that was merely the effect of having one’s blood flow diverted away from the brain. I do not know how long it took him to bring me to a climax so shattering that I felt as if my whole body was being disjointed and sucked into his welcoming mouth, but I only know that it was not long enough. Would that it could have lasted just this side of forever.
It was only as I began to return to some semblance of mental order that I realised that Holmes had just swallowed down what felt to be a rather copious amount of my semen, without gagging or spitting it out. In fact, he was looking up at me now with eyes crinkled into a contented smile, and a mouth which curved in arch satisfaction. The very tip of his tongue crept out, slow and deliberate and coquettish, to lick his cracked lips. He appeared to be savouring my emissions, not pursing his lips in revulsion as I had half-expected.
There were obviously hidden depths to my old friend. I should have been disgusted by his wanton lewdness, but seeing his playful side emerging under these circumstances made me just want him all the more. He had moved back up the bed now, and part of me wanted to kiss him deeply, to share the taste of my essence in his mouth, but I could not quite bring myself to commit such an act. He seemed to read my reluctance, and forbore from attempting to kiss me. Instead, he settled himself at my side and gently stroked my hair away from my brow. I was feeling rather hot and flustered by this point.
‘I always suspected you were feigning your complete indifference to the softer passions, Holmes,’ I murmured to him as we caught our breath and subsided back on to rearranged pillows. I made him drink another large glass of lemonade—my medical instincts had rebelled at working a dehydrated man into such a sweat, although I lacked the self-control to moderate our activities—and then I lay down beside him and folded him into my arms.
‘Indifferent to women, Watson, and as I once thought, immune to the more tender emotions, although I may have to change that view now, may I not? I do sincerely hope that you have not shattered my judgement for good, my dear fellow.’ He laughed and kissed me before continuing in a more hesitant voice, ‘I am not sure that there is any man alive, however, who is wholly indifferent to the baser needs of the flesh.’
As I worked through that string of statements with a frown at their implications, he touched a quieting finger to my lips.
‘I have ever been discreet, and... careful in all regards. And I have not been tempted in the least by any other since I realised the nature of my feelings for you.’ His mouth curled up in a strange, self-deprecating smile. ‘It has been a very frustrating time for me, as you can imagine. You may add yet another form of self-abuse to the catalogue of my personal failings, Watson, although I would rather you did not share that one with your readers. Did you not wonder why I threw myself into my cases with such energy?’
I laid my lips to his still-greasy forehead, strangely moved by his honest confession. I was also wracked with guilt as I thought of Holmes, alone and melancholic, drawn into his solitary vices to deal with his illicit desires. The narcotic flood through his veins must indeed have brought blessed relief from conscious and coherent thought, when thought took him in such dangerous directions.
‘Such energy is in your nature, my friend,’ I answered. I caressed him wordlessly for a moment, then added, ‘But why did you wait so long to...?’
‘Because not even I could deduce the true nature of your feelings for me, not until tonight. Your easy way with women, your genuine delight in their company... it seemed too improbable to hope that you might also harbour a fondness for men.’ He gave a wry, twisted smile. ‘It seems that my powers of observation are far less developed than you or I think, my dear chap.’
‘I am sorry,’ I whispered, ‘I have always striven to suppress that side of my character, to hide it from myself as much as anybody else.’ He fidgeted a little at that, and I hugged him tight. ‘As a rule I am not fond of men in that way, Holmes, but I am most definitely fond of you, more than fond. I think I have just demonstrated that, have I not?’
He squirmed in my arms again, purposefully now, rubbing the full length of his body against mine. Unlikely as it seemed, my sated flesh responded to his touch, and I started to grow hot and heavy once again between our entwined bodies. With one quick twist of his lithe frame, Holmes rolled on to his back and pulled me on top of him with ease, although I nearly match him for height and am far more sturdy in build.
‘Show me again,’ he pleaded as he moved beneath me, and I felt that his arousal was more complete than my own. ‘Make love to me, John.’ He wrapped his long legs around my hips to pull me even closer. ‘Become part of me.’
Never before had Holmes called me by my Christian name, and this new intimacy both pleased and moved me, although I had no intention of returning that particular familiarity—I remembered his look of distaste as he had told me once how the Holmes brothers came by their unusual first names. He will always be Holmes to me.
This pleasant surprise was not quite enough to offset my consternation at his request. Although I had just admitted to some innate sexual interest in men, I had most certainly never put that into effect before, and I was not at all convinced that I could please my beloved Holmes in the manner he so obviously desired and expected. What he proposed went well beyond the realms of my experience.
‘Holmes,’ I stuttered, ‘I am not sure what... I mean...’ I tried to compose myself. ‘I should be afraid of hurting you, or doing it wrong, or...’
‘Hush,’ he said, and kissed me gently on the lips. ‘You shall not hurt me, and I cannot imagine that you could fail to satisfy me. You have already produced a quite startlingly successful display of the appropriate anatomical knowledge.’ He gave a soft chuckle. ‘You may accuse me of arrogance, as you often do, but I flatter myself that you too shall find the experience rather satisfying.’
He was undulating beneath me now, bringing my stiffening member into rhythmical contact with his own hard phallus, and I found my resistance weakening. I also remembered how tight and hot his rear passage had been around my questing fingers, and I felt a sudden surge of desire as I imagined just how he would feel around my larger and more sensitive parts.
‘What should I do?’ I asked in a trembling voice, and he sighed with delicious anticipation.
‘Just a little more vaseline should suffice.’
I fumbled for the jar and repeated my earlier movements, smoothing the vaseline around and then into Holmes. As I slipped my finger inside him again, Holmes tugged the jar from my hands, and then a few seconds later I felt the most delectable sensation of his cool greased fingers smearing the lubricant on to the tip of my erection with delicate strokes, then moving downwards to grease the shaft with a firmer touch. I would have been happy with just that pleasant sensation, but the anticipation of what was to come made me surge even thicker in his hands.
When he had finished, he demonstrated the flexibility of his loose-limbed body by throwing his legs over my shoulders and wrapping his ankles around my neck. In that position, it was easier than I had expected to guide myself into place. Blind instinct took over as I pressed myself into him, and I groaned aloud as I felt him deliberately relax and unfurl to allow me entry to his body.
He was as hot and tight as I had hoped, and that close band of muscle gripped at me with a most arousing pressure as I worked myself slowly within. Holmes’s face was close to mine and I could see that his jaw was set tight and his expression was intense, although his occasional indrawn hisses were of pleasure rather than pain. As I slid my full length into him for the first time, he reached out to grip my flanks and pause me for a moment. I halted, afraid that I had hurt him, but he opened his eyes and gave me a smile of pure contentment.
‘Yes, John,’ he murmured in a needy voice, which cut its way to my very soul, and began to move beneath me. We then began a slow lovemaking, although as Holmes’s passions became more heated with my incessant gliding thrusts he began to whisper obscene, foul-mouthed compliments into my ear. Never before have I heard myself and my physical attributes described in such graphic terms. The effect was far from revolting, but I soon felt moved to kiss him, to stop the stream of words flowing from those thin lips of his.
He implored me to take him with more vigour, and I did so with some enthusiasm. As he pulled my head down to his for another deep, ardent kiss, I lost control completely. I drove his contorted body into the mattress with an eagerness which, I fear, must have come close to injuring him, although he showed no signs of distress. As I began to moan with the prospect of my impending orgasm, he gripped one of my arms, which had been cradling his torso. He pulled my hand between our sweating bodies, and I understood that he sought to join with me in a mutual release.
The pressure of him around me, and the delightful stimulation of his every touch on my skin, was such that I was quickly drawn into the spiralling abyss of my pleasure. Holmes too seemed close to the edge, and as I pumped his phallus faster and faster I heard him give one sharp cry before he jerked in my hand and his seed—much reduced after his first emission, of course—splashed hotly on to my abdomen. But that sensation was nothing to that which engulfed my own member as Holmes’s sphincter tightened around me and quickly drew forth my own climax in an explosion of sensation. As I came, I tried to bury far more of my body into him than was physically possible, although in his insensate state he barely appeared to notice.
It took us both some moments to recover our senses, catch our breaths, and disentangle our exhausted bodies. Neither of us said anything. I, for one, was almost fearful of speaking, in case I should blurt out intimate things which were best left unsaid. I have a naturally flowery turn of phrase in such situations, but Holmes scorns romanticism. Even now, I feared that he might mock me gently for my sentimentality, although I had seen such things in his eyes that could not fit comfortably with his usual cold analytical persona. My stomach knotted tight as I recollected an image of his dark lashes sweeping his cheeks as his eyes closed in ecstasy, and I knew at that point that I really did love him in a physical as well as an emotional sense. The thought left me both exhilarated and terrified.
Holmes rolled over beside me and wrapped an arm over my body. I shifted to lie more comfortably in his embrace, so that his greater height curled around and encompassed me, the bend of his knees fitting neatly into the back of mine. His face felt hot as he nuzzled a soft kiss into the back of my neck.
Men being men, I think we were both asleep in a matter of moments. Certainly, I was too tired and too contented to fret over the crime we had just committed.
I woke early the next morning to the most delicious sensations. Of course, it is no surprise to wake in a state of physical arousal, but it is a most pleasant surprise to find one’s aroused portions being gently caressed by the warm hand of one’s lover.
Holmes and I still lay as we did when we fell asleep, with his chest pressed against my back and his arm around me in that intimate embrace. In my sleepily relaxed state I made no objection to his forwardness; I was hardly in a position to do so after the events of that night. Nor, in my weakness, was I inclined to protest, and all vestigial thoughts of resistance disappeared as he leaned over me and nuzzled at my earlobe.
I rolled over as best I could in the narrow bed, eager to feel his mouth on my lips, and he obliged me with a tender, teasing kiss which rapidly deepened into flaming excitement. Our hands roved over warm, morning-soft skin, and before I knew it Holmes was on top of me, kissing me and stroking me, and pressing his impassioned body against my own.
He pulled away from me for just long enough to insinuate a hand between our bodies and arrange matters so that aroused flesh rubbed against aroused flesh. Then I took his weight again and let out a soft moan of pleasure as he began to make love to me, swaying and grinding his lithe body against mine in a slow and tantalising rhythm.
We said nothing, but explored each other’s bodies—or as much of them as we could reach from our entwined position—with fingertips and kisses. Holmes’s hair was tousled with sleep and a stray lock fell down into his half-closed eyes, making him look improbably young and ethereally beautiful. I swept it back on to his forehead and then traced the stark lines of his face, running a fingertip down his nose and across his cheekbone, then tracing the outline of those thin lips.
He arrested the progress of my finger with a gentle nip of his teeth, then laved his tongue along it. This sent a rushing thrill of sensation straight to my groin, and as he took my finger into his mouth and gnawed and sucked at it in time with the gentle thrusts of his hips, I feared that my arousal might spiral out of control. I began to reciprocate Holmes’s movements, rocking up against his hot, hard body.
Our mutual desire flared and burned until we drove against each other with a fervour which came close to desperation. I clasped him tight to me, reluctant to relinquish the feel of his skin against even the smallest piece of my body. I arched up against him as my excitement grew, and gasped and moaned constantly as Holmes whipped my passions ever higher.
I was on the verge of climax when he suddenly stopped above me, and his head flew up in an attitude of alertness. ‘The maid!’ he hissed.
This news, with its attendant risk of discovery—for all we knew, she could hear the soft but distinctive rhythmical creak of the bed through the walls in the still of dawn—should have brought it home to me what a foolish and risky thing it was that we did. I am afraid, however, that I was largely incapable of caring at that point in time, or even of conscious thought.
‘No!’ I moaned softly at the cessation of Holmes’s movements, and I redoubled my own driving efforts beneath him. I saw Holmes look at me with an amused glance, and he gave a wicked, calculating smile. He pressed himself down hard on me, preventing the bed from rocking too audibly, and stuffed one hand into my mouth to silence my groans.
Pinned down and gagged as I was, all sensation and reaction flowed to the centre of my being and the delightful compression of my thrusting member against his restraining body. I fear that I may have bitten him rather hard as I convulsed and shuddered and climaxed against him with a smothered cry.
His satisfied chuckle was so soft that even I barely heard it, and then he held me, sweaty and panting, in his encompassing arms until his sharp ears heard the maid depart. Once he was sure that we were alone again, he kissed me passionately and returned to the satisfaction of his own needs. Now that my ecstasy had passed, I put all my effort into caressing Holmes into an orgasm every bit as shattering as my own.
He brought himself quickly to climax, perhaps mindful of the ever-present dangers involved. I claimed his mouth with my own as his eyes squeezed tightly shut and I felt his semen add to the slipperiness between our close-pressed bellies. My kiss stifled the gasping cries which he, in his rapture, could not hold back. Slowly, the tension ebbed from his limbs, and we held each other in tender arms as our breathing slowed back to normal.
Eventually, Holmes prised his sticky body from mine and rolled to my side. He still said nothing coherent, but gave a soft murmur of satisfied contentment and quickly fell back into a light sleep.
I was now completely awake and alert, and allowed myself the indulgence of watching him for a few moments. He looked much healthier than he had the previous evening, although that was perhaps the result of the fetching flush which our exertions had left glowing on his cheeks. His lips were still dry and cracked, although I had not noticed this while he kissed me with such need and passion. I was drawn again to stroke his disordered hair away from his brow, and he stirred and mumbled slightly as I touched him.
There was a look of youthful innocence about him as he dozed, but the things we had done dispelled any notion of Holmes’s innocence in matters carnal. I wondered how many other things about him—important things like this—were a complete mystery to me. I knew him as well as anyone, but even I only knew so much as he was willing to have me know.
In the cold light of dawn, with passion and desire spent, I also began to reflect on the consequences of my actions. The implications were chilling, and painful. I had been self-indulgent and weak; I was weak when I first let him kiss me, I was weak when I made love to him, and I had been self-indulgent just now as I let him pleasure me once again. I realised that I had put myself in a dangerous and difficult position, if not an impossible one. A sudden wave of disgust flowed over me, and I slid from the bed as gently as I could. My caution stemmed more from a desire to avoid Holmes’s conversation than from a fear of disturbing his sleep.
I stood naked and shivering in his room while I attempted to wash the evidence of our sins from my body with some cold water from the ewer. I then gathered up my scattered clothes, dressed as quickly and quietly as I could, and went out into the sitting room.
The maid had lit the fire and I warmed myself before its welcome flames, pondering what I should do next. My inclination, I am ashamed to say, was to bolt like a coward, back to my own hearth and my waiting wife, and away from this man who offered such tempting and forbidden—and loving—pleasures.
I had just resolved to leave when the door opened and Mrs Hudson bustled in with Holmes’s breakfast on a tray. She seemed a little startled to see me rather than Holmes standing before the fire.
‘Oh, Dr Watson,’ she exclaimed, ‘I didn’t know that you meant to stay the night! Your old bed was not made up for you!’
I am not sure how she could not have perceived the true course of events from the look of guilt which must have swept my face at that point. Fortunately for me, a credible half-lie came readily to mind.
‘I thought that Holmes would head for the police station as soon as I left, so I stayed with him until he slept. I must have fallen asleep in the chair.’ At least the crumpled state of my clothes would support that version of events, and I put a massaging hand to my old war wound to add some credence to my story.
Mrs Hudson gave me a knowing smile as she set down the breakfast on the table. Dear motherly creature that she is, she knows as well as I how hard it is to prevent Holmes from ruining his health in one of his relentless bursts of energy. I do not envy her the task of caring for him on her own since my marriage.
‘Shall I take his breakfast through to him in bed, then? The maid said she heard sounds of stirring.’
‘No!’ I cried, rather more sharply than I intended, and I saw our landlady’s eyes widen with surprise. I could not possibly let her into Holmes’s bedroom, not with him lying there naked and the air no doubt redolent and heavy with the reek of sweat and sex.
‘No,’ I said more softly, ‘the maid must have heard me getting up. He’s still asleep, and I’d rather not wake him just yet.’
‘Well, I’d hate to see it go cold,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye. ‘It will be good to see the two of you sitting here together again over the morning papers. Eat up, Dr Watson, and I’ll make Mr Holmes another breakfast.’
I forced out a facsimile of a contented smile as I thanked her, and added, ‘With plenty of hot tea, Mrs Hudson. I’m sure Holmes will be thirsty and ravenous after his long fast.’
She bustled off happily again, and left me alone once again to contemplate one of her wonderful breakfasts. The sight of the food turned my stomach into knots, to match the dread and fear gnawing at my heart.
What now must I—must we—do? What can we do? Dear God, I love them both, my dear sweet Mary and my wild brilliant Holmes. I have always known that I loved them both, but I never before dared to admit to myself that I want Holmes, lustily and passionately, and that I no longer see him simply with the fraternal regard due to an old and intimate friend. I have tried extremely hard to convince myself that our encounter was a heinous and singular lapse on both our parts, brought on by Holmes’s overexertion and my high emotion, but I know that not to be true.
Yet our relationship cannot be, surely it cannot be. I have a wife, whom I love dearly and desire still, and I do not wish to part from her to return to Holmes’s rooms—Holmes’s bed—at Baker Street. Whatever his personal charms and his feelings for me (for I do not doubt that they run beyond mere physical attraction), an irregular bachelor establishment cannot compete with a family home for a man’s comfort and happiness. Nor does poor Mary deserve the public opprobrium and gossip that a separation would bring upon us both.
The other alternative, an adulterous affair, and an illegal affair with a man to boot, is equally unattractive. I fear I have neither the callousness nor the capacity for dishonesty which such a course would require—after all, it was my inability to dissemble which proved so valuable to Holmes in the Culverton Smith case—and I have always found Holmes to be a deeply moral man, even if his morals and the precepts of the law do not always coincide. And even if I put all these consideration aside, the fear of discovery must hang over us always; even Holmes’s own rooms were not safe from listening ears and curious eyes.
So Holmes and I must pretend that we are, and have never been anything but, the most dear and intimate of friends. I am not sure whether I can do it. I want him so much, I think of his exquisite body and his delightful kisses even when I am engaged in the closest relations with Mary, to my great shame and self-disgust. The mere writing of the depravities which passed between us that night has made me grow physically aroused to the point of painfulness, and made me yearn heartily for Holmes’s skilled fingers to relieve me once again. I did not mean to describe our activities in such lurid and obscene detail, but I found that once I started, I could not stop myself, even though my arm cramped with the pain of writing so fast for so long. How can I purge myself of this madness? Do I even wish to be cured?
And what of Holmes? After we had eaten our breakfast in an uncomfortable silence, I made it clear to him that there ought never to be a repeat of those happenings, even though his kisses burned still upon my lips and the echoes of his touch shivered across my skin. I fear my eyes and my looks and my tremulous voice must have countermanded my actual words on that occasion, and yet I have not heard from him since.
It has been three long, hard, disheartening weeks now. Is he keeping away out of respect for my wishes, in the knowledge that our mutual desires may not be resisted so easily? Was that the reason he had avoided me and my home since my marriage—the pain caused by my choice of Mary over him, as it must have seemed to his mind? For I saw the fear of rejection in his face as I went to lock the bedroom door that night, and I shudder now as I remember the things he said and the way he reached for the cocaine bottle when I told him of my forthcoming marriage. I fear that by giving him what he so desired, then withdrawing it from him again, I have driven him even further into unhappiness, with all its consequences.
My greatest fear is that I have thrown away the greatest friendship I shall ever have the privilege to share, simply for the base satisfaction of my carnal lusts. How should I possibly bear such a loss?
Oh, Holmes, my beloved Holmes, what have I done?
THE END